David Ferrer and Andy Roddick lived up to their No. 1 and No. 2 seedings yesterday by progressing to the quarter-finals of the Japan Open.
Spaniard Ferrer recovered from a slow start to defeat Japanese wildcard Takao Suzuki 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, while Roddick downed Austrian No.14 seed Jurgen Melzer 7-6 (2), 6-2.
Ferrer will next meet fifth-seeded Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina, who defeated Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 6-1, 6-3.
The draw opened up for Roddick, as his likely quarter-final opponent Jo-Wilfried Tsonga retired from his third-round match with a reported abdominal strain. The Frenchman, who reached the Australian Open final this year and won the ATP tournament in Bangkok last weekend, was leading 7-5, 1-2 against Serbian Viktor Troicki when he was forced out.
Czech Tomas Berdych defeated Spaniard Tommy Robredo 7-6, 6-2 and will face Fernando Gonzalez of Chile in the quarter-finals. Gonzalez defeated Amer Delic 6-4, 7-6 (4).
The other quarter-final will be between Frenchman Richard Gasquet and German Rainer Schuettler. Gasquet crushed Japanese Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-2, while No.12 Schuettler lost an epic second-set tiebreak before recovering to edge Russian No. 8 Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-7 (12), 6-4.
Ferrer broke Suzuki to go up 3-1 in the second set and said that was the key to winning the match.
“It was a tough match, Takao surprised me,” Ferrer said.
“He was very focused but when I broke him in the second set I got more focused, then the third set was easier for me,” he said.
Ferrer coasted through the final set and won with an ace to wrap up the match in 1 hour, 56 minutes.
In the second round of the women’s singles No. 1 seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark cruised past Japan’s Ayumi Morita 6-2, 6-1.
In other matches Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic beat Pole Marta Domachowska 6-3, 6-0, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia beat Rika Fujiwara of Japan 6-2, 6-4 and Canada’s Aleksandra Wozniak defeated Ryoko Fuda of Japan 6-1, 6-1.
Australian Samantha Stosur beat No. 2 seed Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain 6-1, 7-5.
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